Toyota lands in Texas – with a thud.

Editor-in-Chief's Note: The "orderly transition" at the Ford Motor Company - the handoff of the CEO title from Alan Mulally to Mark Fields - was officially announced yesterday. I've read most if not all of the hand-wringing about the transition and the myriad "to-do" lists for Fields from the "experts" in the automotive media and they were for the most part predictable and tedious. I'm always amazed at the depth and breadth of the lack of knowledge and insight demonstrated by the media, and much of what I read could have been written six months ago, easily. Suffice to say, Mark Fields has a tremendous opportunity to shape the future of the Ford Motor Company. He also has a laundry list of challenges and issues, a brace of crucial product launches, and the ever-changing landscape of the global automotive business to deal with. Is Mark Fields up to the challenge? I am absolutely convinced that he is the right executive, at the right time, at the right car company. He understands what "focused consistency" truly means in this business and he will build on Alan Mulally's legendary legacy to move the Ford Motor Company confidently into the future. Will there be complications and difficulties? Certainly. Some of those problems will even be generated from within the Ford Motor Company itself.  I will have more to say on the subject in future columns. - PMD

By Peter M. De Lorenzo

Detroit. The news that Toyota was abandoning its longstanding beachhead in Southern California swept across the usual media outlets like wildfire over the weekend, with confirmation coming from the automaker itself that yes, it was indeed moving its U.S. headquarters to Plano, Texas, a suburb 20 miles outside of Dallas.

What does this mean in the Big Picture concerning this industry? Not much. Toyota will save a ton of cash, and the employees who make the move from California to Texas will do so too. No big deal, right?

Well, it gets complicated after that.

When it comes to where cars are built, it has long been proven that most consumers just don’t care all that much. Yes, there was a time when German car enthusiasts knowing that their cars were built in Germany was a factor in purchase decisions, but with BMW and Mercedes churning out vehicles in South Carolina and Alabama for years, that notion has fallen by the wayside. And every global auto manufacturer now builds vehicles around the world so it has basically become a non-issue.

Where these auto companies are headquartered still matters, however, at least somewhat and to varying degrees. Knowing Porsche, Mercedes-Benz, Audi, VW and BMW are still controlled from Germany makes a difference to their buyers. But after that it disintegrates. Two German auto manufacturers - VW and BMW - control Bentley and Rolls-Royce, respectively, two very British luxury brands. Jaguar and Land Rover, two other resolutely British brands, are now owned by the Tata conglomerate from India. And of course Chrysler is now owned by Fiat and controlled from the air by its CEO while he flies between Italy and Auburn Hills. So there’s that.

And the Japanese manufacturers? Well, they’re still Japanese, but Toyota has been in this country for 50 years and derives most of its profitability from this market. And Honda and Datsun (now Nissan) established their own beachheads in Southern California decades ago, even though Nissan recently bolted to Tennessee and Honda established manufacturing operations in Ohio long ago.

But there’s a subtle difference when it comes to the Japanese automakers doing business in this country, and it’s a difference that other manufacturers doing business here can’t quite compete with.

The Japanese brands came to dominate California - the largest single market in the U.S. - by delivering quality and value that the American car companies couldn’t match. And their success spread throughout the rest of the country, inexorably changing the U.S. automobile industry forever.

But besides quality and value, the Japanese brands soared in the image-wrangling business too. They came up with memorable advertising campaigns that were permanently seared into the American consumer consciousness with an impact that endures to this day. Toyota had “Oh, what a feeling!” Datsun had “We are driven!” and even though Honda had “You meet the nicest people on a Honda” for its motorbikes, it encapsulated the residual feel-good aura surrounding the brand perfectly.

These Japanese car companies had a hipness quotient that was undeniable and thus they came to represent the “new” America, and in the process they became California brands, something the domestic automakers couldn't even come close to matching.

But there was even more to it than that. That the Japanese brands had been on a mission to become part of the American fabric from the moment they arrived here was no secret. And none of them did that more calculatedly and obsessively than Toyota.

Toyota took one of the most successful marketing playbooks in automotive history – the one that propelled Chevrolet to dizzying heights in GM’s heyday - and not only copied it down the last detail but executed it flawlessly, adding nuances and successful embellishments to it as the years unfolded. So much so that for all intents and purposes Toyota supplanted Chevrolet as “America’s car.”

Knowing all of that then, what will this move from California to Texas mean to the psyche of Toyota?

The move will undeniably take an emotional toll on the people who make the trek to Plano, not to mention devastate the people who don’t. But judging by the statements made by Toyota operatives, I get the feeling management believes the logic and sense surrounding the business decision – the company will receive massive incentives offered by the state of Texas on top of the tax savings – will far outweigh the negatives.

I’m not buying that. Toyota’s image in this country is so inexorably tied to California that it now defines its essence. It’s who they are and what they do and why they exist. In fact, it will not be the same for Toyota, I can assure you.

And after decades of capturing the aura surrounding the “state” of California and milking it for all it was worth, Toyota moving to Texas falls flat with a giant thud.

“Oh, what a feeling!” is about to take on an entirely different connotation for the people of Toyota.

And that’s the High-Octane Truth for this week.